Marc Myers writes daily on jazz legends and legendary jazz recordings

December 2009

December 31, 2009

There's no better way to celebrate the start of a new year than by listening to the hot-blooded sound of Coleman Hawkins and watching the tenor titan in action. I'm sure you've already seen the popular YouTube clip featuring Hawk and Charlie Parker and the one of Hawk and Billie Holiday in 1957 on CBS' The Sound of Jazz. But you may never have seen the six clips I unearthed below after conducting a bit of video research. Dig Hawk's assertive sound, dig the seamless ideas and, most of all, dig Hawk's style and cool. Wow! A hearty Happy New Year to JazzWax readers in the U.S. and across the globe!

Here's Blues in G (Not South of France Blues, as listed). It was recorded in Brussels in 1961 with Mickey Baker (guitar), Georges Arvanitas (piano), Jimmy Woode (bass), and Kansas Fields (drums)...

Here'sHawk with a bedridden Ethel Waters from Goodnight Sweet Blues, a 1961 TV episode of Route 66(thanks Joel Lewis!). Since trumpeter Roy Eldridge clearly is on drums and drummer Jo Jones is on trumpet, and Hawk is on clarinet (!), the music most certainly was dubbed...

Here's Hawk in 1945 with Howard McGhee (trumpet), Sir Charles Thompson (piano), Oscar Pettiford (bass) and Denzil Best (drums) in a scene from the film The Crimson Canary. Dig Hawk marching in place with the beat when not playing...

December 30, 2009

It's a mistake for jazz fans to compare Diana Ross to jazz vocalists. Ross' intonation, timbre and roots all come from a completely different place. Her Lady Sings the Blues (1972) drew praise from some jazz circles, and it was a big seller. But to me, Ross as Billie Holiday always felt inconceivable and forced. Too much lady, not enough blues. Rather, I much prefer Ross in her zone, notably on her early solo albums—where she delivered a pleading, kittenish sound on medium-tempo soul-pop ballads. Sadly, jazz fans have ignored her contribution, citing a lack of vocal depth or sincerity. These tags are completely unfair, as is evident with the newly released and remastered Touch Me in the Morning (Expanded Edition).

The 1973 album was Ross' fourth studio recording removed from the Supremes and her most mature studio package up until that point. Today we think of Ross as a first-name star performer—like Barbra or Cher. But in the early 1970s, Ross' solo bid was fragile at best and could go either way. As the liner notes to this new CD set point out, Ross would open most of her live dates at the time by saying, "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 'let's-see-if-Diana-Ross-can-do-it-by-herself show.' "

Questions about Ross' ability to click with audiences certainly were merited. But her slow start hardly was her fault. Little strategic thinking had been done to forge an image for her, as is evidenced by the unevenness of her initial Motown LPs. Clearly, the label assumed that stardom would kick in for Ross eventually and that Motown's resources were better trained on other acts.

But when Ross (Lady Sings the Blues) lost out to Liza Minnelli (Cabaret) at the 1972 Academy Awards, Motown founder Berry Gordy had had enough. Rather than continue to let Ross twist artistically in the wind, Gordy wisely crafted an image for her as a relaxed contemporary legend—not a struggling wannabe or square jazz heir. Ross' projects underway were immediately shelved, including Blue (more jazz), To the Baby (too middle-age), Diana and Marvin (too second fiddle) and Live at Caesars Palace (too premature).

Instead, it was bullet time. To achieve a solid standing on her own, Ross needed a crossover hit album that resonated with blacks and whites, with women and men. Women needed to see Ross as a strong fighter with passionate needs while men had to perceive her as sexy and desirable. And whatever image was created, it had to stick with her for years and not have to be re-made with the next release. The result was Touch Me in the Morning, an album with five top producers headed by Gordy. The title track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and the LP hit No. 5 on the Billboard Albums Chart.

The album's approach was similar in some ways to the sound pioneered with great success by Karen and Richard Carpenter on A Song For You (1972), also their fourth release. There was a soft urgency to their delivery, a layered choral approach that hit the mark on Hurting Each Other, Goodbye to Love and I Won't Last a Day Without You. The difference is that Ross' delivery packed more heat on the soulful side compared with Karen Carpenter's tightly wound, ice-cool perfection.

The opening track, Touch Me in the Morning, was written by Michael Masser [pictured] and Ron Miller and instantly established Ross as a strong-sexy woman. Side 1 built steadily from there, with All of My Life, We Need You and Leave a Little Room, closing with the Carpenters' hit I Won't Last a Day Without You written by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams. Side 2 included a mix of originals and covers. There was Little Girl Blue for lingering fans of Lady Sings the Blues from the shelved Blue album and John Lennon's Imagine. There also were three tracks plucked from the To the Baby project.

For years, To the Baby remained a phantom album. Recorded while Ross was pregnant, the project was meant to be a collection of songs for her young children. Said Ross in a 1975 interview paraphrased in Andrew Skurow's liner notes: "When I'm away, I'd like them to be able to put on a tape or record so they can listen to me, or hear me say something positive to them while I'm away, and they'll know that it's okay that I have to do what I have to do."

Fortunately, To the Baby has finally made it out of the vault and onto the second CD in this set. It's a gorgeous, gentle collection of tender songs recorded with enormous love and passion. Included are The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Got to Be There and Marvin Gaye's Save the Children.

As this new set demonstrates, Ross in 1973 was a beautiful singer of medium-tempo soul-pop ballads. She added warmth and passion to the pop female-vocal genre at a time when male groups dominated the charts and robust singers like Carly Simon and Helen Reddy owned the brassy space and Roberta Flack dominated on the bedroom ballad.

For me, it's a joy to hear this album again after so many years, particularly Touch Me in the Morning,I Won't Last a Day Without You and Michael Randall's organic Leave a Little Room. It's what radio music sounded like at the tail end of the soul era, before dance music from Philadelphia, Detroit and South Florida changed everything. Ross needs to be revisited by vocal fans and taken more seriously.

JazzWax tracks: Diana Ross' Touch Me in the Morning (Expanded Edition) from Hip-O Select is a two-CD set that's available only here. I don't know whether there are plans to add the album to iTunes and other on-line retailers. Rather than play like a collection of singles, there is a concept feel to the album and a What's Going On symmetry that brings all of the tracks together. For those who like to mix albums in iTunes, Touch Me in the Morning works well shuffled with Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis (1969). Both have a morning coffee feel.

JazzWax clip:Here's Diana Ross singing Touch Me in the Morning from a TV special in 1999...

December 29, 2009

Bob Willoughby, a West Coast photographer whose candid images
of celebrities in the 1950s portrayed the thrill and exhaustion of
stardom and whose photos of Big Jay McNeely, Chet Baker, Billie Holiday
and other jazz musicians captured their profound commitment to the music, died
on December 18th of cancer at his home in Vence, France. He was 82.

Bob was a fan of JazzWax and kindly allowed me to use his images of Big Jay McNeely when I interviewed the r&b saxophonist in July. He also let me include his image of Art Pepper when I interviewed
Lennie Niehaus in November. Based on my email correspondence with Bob
only a month ago, news of his death came as a complete shock.

Like
Phil Stern, Sid Avery, Peter Basch, Andre de Dienes and other Hollywood
photographers of the 1950s, Bob specialized in humanizing movie stars
who most Americans knew only from the roles they played in films. These
art photographers, often on assignment for national magazines like Life or hired by the studios for on-location stills,
were granted unrestricted back-lot access to their subjects. Movie
studios at the time had little choice as they tried to contend with a
swell of seedy gossip magazines that featured top stars in cheesy
photos and articles with the sordid details of their private lives.

But unlike his peers, who tended to glamorize stars' athletic physiques and
natural self-confidence, Bob preferred to wait for brief quiet moments.
In photo after photo, Bob treated his subjects like exotic birds at
momentary rest on tree limbs just prior to flight. With Bob's images,
you first saw a star's iconic face. But the longer you studied the
photo and the subject's eyes, the more you sawwhat Bob glimpsed—the
underlying strain and fatigue of living in a fishbowl. Bob's Kim Novak
at right is regal but defensive. Humphrey Bogart above is ruggedly
handsome but strangely vulnerable. His Marilyn Monroe is less sex
kitten and more scaredy cat.

With his images of jazz musicians, Bob managed to tease out aspects that were
unique to the art form: their ambition and yearning, the unflinching
devotion to the music, and that lost look musicians exhibit while performing. For
example, Chet Baker is viewed sitting on a folding chair, his chiseled face
impassive. Billie Holiday is caught
mid-story. June Christy is leaning forward zealously and in line with
the piano's lid arm. And the faces of Jack Teagarden, Louis Armstrong and Pee Wee
Russell are lost in another world.

But perhaps the photos that best crystallize Bob's fascination with charisma and starpower are his
images of Big Jay McNeely performing in 1951 at the Olympic Auditorium, a Los Angeles fight arena. These photos captured a sea change
in the culture, depicting r&b not only as music wildly popular with teens but also as an elixir with the potential to erase racial differences. These images remain among Bob's most exciting works.

Yesterday I called Big Jay to talk about Bob and those images:

"I know those pictures well, but I can't recall details about Bob taking them. It's too long ago, and there were so many concerts in those days. The first time I saw those pictures
was in 1952, in an annual yearbook of events from the previous year. Three of those pictures were in the book. When I saw them, I couldn't
believe it. I always put my heart into everything I played but I didn't
know how I looked doing it until I saw those photos. They were so
strong they stuck with me all my life. Whenever people think of me, they think of the photos Bob took.

"What's
most exciting about them is how the kids were responding to me. I was
putting my whole soul into that music, to create something to entertain
the people. I was giving
myself to the audience. Those photos are showing my hospitality. What you
see is that the audience was in charge. As a
performer, you gave them what they wanted. You had to. When I see those
pictures now, I can still hear the music we were playing that night.
You can see in the pictures that Bob understood what was happening. He was right there, in
the middle of all that excitement."

December 28, 2009

At the end of each quarter, I go back through my posts of the past three months and pull the best quotes from my interviews. I do this so you have a bunch of great quotes from jazz legends all in one place and a taste of what the full interview holds. Full interviews can be accessed at JazzWax by scrolling down the right-hand column to "JazzWax Interviews." For the other seven entries in this series, scroll down the right-hand column to "JazzWax Quotes," where the parts are now linked. Here's the latest installment of Mindblowers:

JazzWax: What’s the message of Way Out West?Sonny Rollins: It’s a tribute to independence and being
self-sufficient, which is what the West really means, at least in
Westerns. I was so moved by the West that I wanted to record songs that
expressed how I felt and how much those movies I saw as a kid meant to
me.

JazzWax: What did Jack Teagarden teach you as a singer?David Allyn: How
to cry. He had a cry in his voice that was impeccable. He was so
passionate. He made me think much harder about what I was doing and the
lyrics I was singing.

JazzWax: Were you able to sing while serving time in prison for a drug-related charge?David Allyn: A little, but mostly in my mind. I used to lie on my cot, cross my arms on my chest, and imagine going
on stage and singing. I’d do a whole show that way. When I was
done, I’d be sweating bullets, just like I did when I came off stage,
from the exertion I put into it.

Jimmy Heath:
Miles Davis said the only reason he didn’t play like Dizzy [Gillespie] is because he
couldn’t. Miles wanted to play like Dizzy, but he found his own niche. That niche was playing ballads... He played with such a good feeling that no one cared about the missing notes. He showed that it’s about the feeling, not about perfection.

Jimmy Heath: I wrote Picture of Heath and For Miles and Miles
in prison. I got them out to Chet Baker by passing them to my brother
Tootie. He gave them to Jimmy Bond, who was Chet’s bass player on gigs
at the time. Jimmy gave them to Chet, and Chet and Art Pepper made an
album [Playboys] that included mostly my songs.

JazzWax: What’s your favorite instrument?Johnny Mandel:
There’s nothing like an accordion when used properly. Because it
breathes. A listener's body responds to that. Just listen to some of
the bandoneon players in Argentina.

Johnny Mandel: I find it hard to arrange my own material. I always want to make it perfect. I do numbers on
myself when I’m writing. It’s not an easy process. I don’t know why I
do that. I just do. It seems everything is right, but I have to create
my own problems. But I don’t tell anyone I’m struggling. It’s just part
of the process for me. I’d be much faster if I wasn’t so self-critical.

Leon Ware: The musicians, artists and
writers who were around in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s loved the art
form before they made a dime. I think we lost that in the late 1970s
and beyond. It’s not that I feel that the later generation was short of
talent. It’s that their talent was not being challenged... Rap, r&b, rock and most forms of popular music today trivialize excellence and trivialize what art really is.

JazzWax: What do you think of I Want You’s success?Leon Ware:
I love that this piece of work lives in so many people’s households. So
many people tell me they play it once a day. That’s a great feeling. To
have created a timeless record.

JazzWax: How did you get such a high contrast in your photos?Herman Leonard: I put
one strobe light next to the club spotlight in the ceiling. The other I
placed behind the artist in the background. I used wireless units to
trigger the strobes, but I'd use these strobes only if I had to. The
light was disturbing to the artists. But most of the photos I took were
during rehearsals, so it wasn't too bad. [Self-portrait: Herman Leonard]

JazzWax: How did your famous trumpet solo on Mongo Santamaria's Watermelon Man happen?Mary Sheller: When we went into the studio to record,
there was supposed to be a trumpet solo, a tenor solo, a piano solo, the melody and then out. But the song ran seven minutes. Mongo's manager Pete Long said to us, "Forget about those snakes.”
Snakes was the word used to mean when a jazz player runs scales for
improvisation. Pete added, “You’ve got to cut it down to three minutes.
No tenor solo, no piano solo. Just a trumpet solo. And Marty, don’t
play no snakes. Play funky.”

JazzWax: What surprised you most about Louis Armstrong?Terry Teachout: Louis
Armstrong was a man who could hold a grudge, and he held some of them
for most of his life. In addition, Armstrong was not in any way an
Uncle Tom as described by younger musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie,
who should have known better. In fact, Armstrong was very clear and open-eyed about race relations, in both directions.

JazzWax: What did Armstrong understand about simplicity that was lost on so many other musicians?Terry Teachout: Louis apprenticed with King Oliver, who ingrained in him the centrality of melody to the jazz musician. Armstrong's exposure to Oliver and his view of melody made him feel that it was not only appropriate to embrace simplicity but also vital to appeal to audiences in an immediate way.

David Sleet on his brother, trumpeter Don Sleet: I had planned to become a musician like Don after he left home. But my father discouraged that, insisting I stay in school. Don had
demonstrated that playing jazz professionally wasn't an easy life, and
my father knew it.

David Sleet: No matter how much love and support family provides, they cannot
control outside influences. I still believe Don's substance use was the
result of the friends he kept and the culture he was a part of.

JazzWax: The Palladium must have been some scene in the 1950s.Ray Santos: It was. A lot of homely guys would meet really great looking girls there. On that dance floor, looks for a guy no longer mattered. How well you danced was the whole thing.

JazzWax: How did Latin bandleaders in New York keep up with what was going on in Cuba?Ray Santos: I remember Tito Rodriguez had a Webcor reel-to-reel
tape recorder hooked up to a shortwave radio, and he picked up on
everything being played in Havana that night. So the next night, by the
time his band played, he’d know everything that was hot coming out of
Cuba [laughs].

JazzWax: Which of the Big Three [Machito, Tito Rodriguez and Tito Puente] was best in your opinion?Ray Santos: Wow, what a question. That’s very tough to answer. I
think I’d have to give the edge musically to Machito. He established
the style of his band with those exciting big band arrangements based
on swing of the 1930s and 1940s.

JazzWax: Are you a fast writer?Lennie Niehaus:
Yes. I sit and think and write down little ideas and stitch them
together. I never agonize, “Is this good or bad?” I just write down
what I'm thinking, and it all comes together.

JazzWax: Were Charlie Parker’s recordings used in the movie soundtrack of Bird?Lennie Niehaus:
Yes, but just Parker playing without piano, bass or drums. We dubbed
those in with musicians to give Bird's solos a current sound.
Otherwise, Bird's music would have sounded like old recordings rather
than fresh music you were seeing being created in the movie’s
storyline.

JazzWax: How was Forest Whitaker's impersonation of Charlie Parker?Lennie Niehaus: Terrific. I had to teach him how to hold the alto and finger the notes in place. But he was a quick study. Forest [pictured] had a tendency to roll his shoulders while playing.
Bird never did that. Bird played as though his shoes were nailed to the
floor. So I put my hands on Forest's shoulders to hold them still, so he'd understand.

JazzWax: What was Shelly Manne's advice when you were considering signing with a West Coast record label?Lennie Niehaus:
Shelly told me to go with Contemporary. He said, “Les Koenig will let
you do anything you want. He’ll just record you.” At the time, I wanted
to record a new sound. I loved the concept of the Gerry Mulligan
Quartet, with its contrapuntal exchanges. But I wanted a richer, more
textured result in my small groups.

JazzWax: What do you remember about the West Coast scene back then?Lennie Niehaus:
I remember the argument over which was better, West Coast or East Coast
jazz. It was all ridiculous, since you had West Coast guys like Zoot
Sims living back East and Shorty Rogers, an Easterner, on the West
Coast. But hey, record companies were recording West Coast musicians,
so who was to argue [laughs].

JazzWax: Your arrangements for Stan Kenton's The Stage Door Swings in 1958 placed a new emphasis on the reed section.Lennie Niehaus: Stan wanted an album based on Broadway show tunes. He locked me in
a room in a Chicago hotel. With my work ethic, if I had an idea at 3 a.m., I’d
get up and start writing. They brought an electric piano into my room,
and I had headphones so I wouldn’t disturb other guests. After 2 1/2
weeks, I had produced 12 songs, about one a day. I was on a mission. Stan asked me to base the different tunes on riffs—you know, musical patterns that repeat. So with Lullaby of Broadway, I thought, hey, I’ll base it on Intermission Riff. I changed the standard's chords, and that became the hook.

JazzWax: Did hearing the pianists who were around back in the late 1940s and early 1950s ever discourage you?Marian McPartland:
Hearing others never discouraged me. I felt I was part of the scene. I
was in it for good. But it took determination to play music that people
identified with men. Yet I always seemed to do well.

JazzWax: When you interviewed Bill Evans on Piano Jazz, were you worried that his solemn style would clash with your more playful feel? Marian McPartland: No concerns at all. I knew how he played, and I know how I play. I knew I could keep up with him, and I
did. He liked it a lot. I did feel bad that he was on drugs that day we
did the show. I never would have known he was on drugs. He seemed so
normal. It's hard to believe that he had gone out and scored somewhere
before the show.

JazzWax: Why do you think Joao Gilberto hasn’t recorded more of his own compositions?Ithamara Koorax: Gilberto is such a creative interpreter that he winds up
becoming an unofficial "co-author" of any song he chooses to sing and
record. He says that's the reason he never felt compelled to write
hundreds of songs. He has always said he knows hundreds of great songs
that already exist that he’s satisfied trying to improve or re-do in
his own style.

JazzWax: Is Gilberto intimidating?Ithamara Koorax: He doesn't like to do collaborations. Most of his recent albums are solo projects. He currently performs only solo concerts. Even on his albums Amoroso [1977], Brazil [1980] and João
[1991], which were orchestrated respectively by Claus Ogerman, Johnny
Mandel and Clare Fischer, Gilberto recorded his guitar and vocal tracks
alone. Then the tapes were sent to the arrangers who added the rhythm
sections and later overdubbed the orchestral parts.

JazzWax: What’s the secret of getting kids your age interested in playing jazz?Rachel Rodgers: Listening
is important, of course. And your parents need to encourage you. But
most important is taking lessons from a jazz teacher at a young age.
Classical is essential for the basics, but if you enjoy jazz you need
to add a teacher who will show you how to play it.

December 27, 2009

Another year is roaring to a close and a new one is about to begin. You can almost hear 52nd Street Theme playing as the 2009 gig winds down. This December, I find myself briefly reflective but mostly looking forward and optimistic about what's to come. It has been a rough year for many people, especially jazz musicians and jazz, thanks largely to the contracting economy. But 2010 will certainly be better than the previous two years, that's for sure. So chin up!

Traditionally, I devote the last Sunday post of the year to answering the big questions I regularly receive from readers. My assumption is that if one person asks, many may have the same questions in mind. So here they are...

How do you decide whom to interview? There's no pattern or agenda. I tend to stick with legends I love and whose names have been nearly forgotten or can shed light on my favorite jazz period—1940-1959. I wish there were 10 of me all working at once so we could interview dozens of artists each week. It's my belief that everyone is interesting provided the questions are good and we learn something about an individual and the music. But there aren't 10 of me, so I do the best I can with the time available.

How do you conduct your interviews? All of my interviews are recorded digitally and transcribed by me. As I edit and ready interviews for posting, I double-check facts that subjects might have gotten wrong from their recollections. Once interview segments are posted at JazzWax, I have the subjects review them to ensure that all has been captured accurately. Ultimately, what you read has been recorded, transcribed, carefully edited, reviewed and vetted. I'm a stickler for accuracy, and I take legends' stories and jazz history very seriously.

Where can I find all of your interviews? If you go to JazzWax and scroll down the
right-hand side of the site to "JazzWax
Interviews," you'll find the master list. Names are alphabetized by first name, since it's easier for the eye to scan this way. To access an interview, simply click on a blue link. In many cases,
each entry has up to five parts.

How do I access the different parts of interviews? At
the very top of a "Part 1," you'll see a blue "Part 2" link in parenthesis. Simply click on it, and
Part 2 will appear. You can continue along this route until the interview
series ends.

What's the best way to print out a page? Don't
simply hit
your computer's print button. You'll only run into trouble. Instead,
when you see a page you want, go to the bottom of the post. There,
you'll see the word "Permalink" in blue. Click on it. When the page
comes up, hit your print button. This is the electronic equivalent of tearing out a single page from the JazzWax "book." Just be sure that you're printing at 100% so the content is easy to read.

Can I search your site? Yes. Just type in what you're looking for in the
search engine atop the right-hand column. Just be sure that "JazzWax"
is checked, not the "Web." This will ensure that you're just searching the JazzWax archive.

What is PhotoStory? PhotoStory is a series I started this year that features jazz photographers reflecting in the first person on images they took of jazz legends. To find all posts in the series, go to JazzWax and scroll down the right-hand column to "PhotoStory."

What is "Eyewitness?" "Eyewitness" is a series of first-person essays by guests on jazz artists or events they've known or witnessed. For the full series, go to JazzWax and scroll down the right-hand column to "Eyewitness."

How can I email you? Simply go to the top right-hand corner at JazzWax and click on the blue link under "Email me." Up will come an email shell. Just write and hit "send." I generally do not respond to remarks posted in the Comments section of daily posts, since this space is for one and all. But I do try to answer all emails promptly.

Who owns your content? JazzWax™ is a registered
U.S.
trademark owned by Marc Myers LLC. The posts at this
site are copyrighted and may be used or excerpted only with my permission.

Where else does your content appear? JazzWax is syndicated
on the home page of JAZZ.FM91 under an
agreement between JazzWax and
Canada's leading nonprofit radio station in Toronto. JazzWax also is reprinted daily at All About Jazz under a similar agreement.

Can I subscribe to JazzWax? Yes, and it's free. In
the
right-hand side, toward the top, you'll see "Subscribe for Free." You have two choices:

1. If you have already set up a customized Google or Yahoo home page, the
"Subscribe" button will put the current day's headline and previous
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2. Or you can provide your email address in the box, and an email
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December 24, 2009

What's My Line? appeared on TV from 1950 to 1967. For those unfamiliar with the show, the format was brilliant: Four panelists tried to guess the identity of a mystery guest by taking turns asking questions, with the guest answering merely "yes" or "no." The high point was the celebrity-guest segment, during which panelists wore blindfolds and the superstar answered in a disguised voice. If the panelists wound up stumped when time or the question allotment ended, the VIP won. No cash prize, just a little crow to eat. Most of the time, however, the erudite panelists figured out who the big shot was—helped in part by their vast knowledge of show business. The intensity of the live audience's applause when the star guest emerged to sign the chalkboard helped quite a bit, too. (That's Julie London's hip signature above.)

Most of the time, guests were leading movie stars, comedians and entertainers. But occasionally, the show would feature jazz greats and pop singers. Not sure what sort of present to get so many of you for the holidays, I simply decided to cull 11 of these jazz-pop appearances below. Enjoy—and Merry Christmas!

December 23, 2009

I've always loved this Herb Snitzer image of Miles Davis. The trumpeter isn't posing or glaring at the camera. Instead, he's caught in motion, looking back at someone who has caught his eye. There's velocity here and a perspicacious flash, like a star athlete captured in mid-air making a split decision. Interestingly, Davis' restless, caged expression is similar to Frank Sinatra's. Both were fully aware of their living-legend status, happy to be the center of attention but always in control.

Is Davis smiling? Why do we see just one eye? How was the photograph taken? And when? I asked photographer Herb Snitzer to explain:

"I took this image of Miles Davis backstage at the Apollo Theater in 1960. It was taken soon after the release of Kind of Blue, so Miles was flying high. It was my first encounter with the trumpeter, who was a rather open and relaxed guy back then. I didn’t speak with him that night, but I do recall he was easy-going and messing around with his band members

"I went to the Apollo on my own to photograph Miles and his group. There were no writers with me. I was on staff with Metronome at the time, but this wasn’t an assignment. I was just curious, and I'd often go out on my own to photograph jazz musicians.

"In the image, the blur in front of Miles is actually an out-of-focus Philly Joe Jones. I like this one-eye view of Miles. Believe it or not, the image wasn't accident. I had planned to capture just a part of Miles as a way of saying that I didn’t really know this person, only a part of him—his background, his music and so on. In addition to Philly Joe, Miles’ entire group was backstage, along with disc jockey Symphony Sid.

"I was using my Nikon SP Rangefinder 35 mm camera without a flash, just high-resolution Tri-X film. Backstage wasn’t the most ideal place to photograph by available light, and going forward I learned real fast to bring a small flash unit with me.

"I was relatively new both to photography and to the jazz world, and when I look back on what I was able to accomplish in the seven years I lived in New York, I feel blessed.

"I saw Miles from time to time over the years, including in 1988, 1989 and finally at Newport, RI, in 1990. By then he was, emotionally, a far different person than the person I photographed 30 years earlier."

JazzWax note:
A limited number of silver gelatin, museum-finish prints of Miles Davis and other jazz artists are available for sale. Please contact Herb [pictured] directly
at Herbsnitzer@aol.com.

More PhotoStories:
I started this feature to showcase iconic jazz images and the stories
of the photographers who took them. You'll find the 11 other PhotoStory posts in this series
under the "PhotoStory" heading in the right-hand column of this blog (JazzWax).

December 22, 2009

Each year, in the days leading up to Christmas, I typically share a favorite offbeat jazz-pop album that conjures up warm images of the holidays. Last year, my pick was Jo Stafford's Happy Holidays: I Love the Winter Weather. This year, my throwback pick is June Christy's This Time of Year (Capitol), which was arranged by Pete Rugolo and released in 1961. You won't recognize any of the album's tunes. None of them are holiday standards. The album was a concept LP with original compositions and lyrics by Arnold and Connie Pearce Miller.

According to Todd Everett's liner notes in the 2005 reissue of This Time of Year, the Millers made up half of the Double Daters, a San Francisco vocal group. During World War II, the group sang locally with touring big bands that couldn't afford to travel with a vocal group. After the war, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where Arnold worked in advertising and Connie stayed at home. I do not know whether the Millers were part of the Double Daters that recorded If I Ever Love Again
with Frank Sinatra in July 1949. Discographies don't list the group's
members, and several vocal groups used the name, including one formed
by vocal arranger Ray Charles, who worked with Sinatra at the time.

In Los Angeles, the Millers continued to write and publish songs. In the late 1950s, the couple was introduced to June Christy and her husband, tenor saxophonist Bob Cooper. In 1959, Christy recorded one of the Millers' tunes, Night Time Was My Mother, on her LP The Song Is June. Michael, the couple's son, is quoted in the liner notes: "Writing This Time of Year was their passion. They wanted to capture all the emotions of Christmas, from the joy to the sorrow. There are some emotional moments but also a lot of upbeat jazz."

This Time of Year is an unusual holiday album, and it grows on you fast. The tunes have intricate melodies and unusual lyrics, but the real star here is Rugolo [pictured], whose arrangements adhere to a jazz feel without selling out. And all the while, the charts frame Christy's hip, dry-vermouth vocal sound perfectly. It's tough not to love an album with a cover featuring Christy in red stretch ski pants and a waist-length shearling jacket poised to hurl a snowball.

As for Stafford's Happy Holidays: I Love the Winter Weather, the tracks on this album are all you need to rekindle memories of a
slower time, when a snowfall meant sleds and a fireplace. Most of
this Stafford CD appeared originally on Stafford's Happy Holiday (1955) and Ski Trails (1956), both released by Columbia. Each track on the CD is a work of art, with Stafford's inimitable warm, maternal singing style backed by the handsome, clarinet-high orchestrations of husband Paul Weston.

Stafford was popular with virtually all audiences. Over the weekend, while doing research, I came across a 1945 article in the New York Amsterdam News that reported she was rated Harlem's second favorite vocalist behind Billie Holiday based on local record sales. It's easy to hear why. This 1956 album features 22 tracks, including By the Fireside, Sleigh Ride, Winter Wonderland and It Happened in Sun Valley.

JazzWax tracks: Luckily, June Christy's This Time of Year is available as a download here. Jo Stafford's Happy Holidays: I Love the Winter Weather also is available as a download here.

JazzWax clip: Here's Jo Stafford in 1955 singing By the Fireside with the Starlighters. Dig Stafford's enormous breath control, which she learned from Tommy Dorsey in the early 1940s along with her bandmate Frank Sinatra. The remastering of this track is so good you can actually hear Stafford inhaling before delivering lyrics...

December 21, 2009

It's easy to carp about the death of jazz and young jazz artists' ignorance of the music's history. Both are soft targets, especially since so many young jazz players seem almost proud that they know little or nothing about jazz's past. Somewhere along the line, "old" in our music schools became "useless," as if the shock of the new alone makes one's performances significant. One 21-year-old pianist who is changing these perceptions is Joe Alterman. His new album, Piano Tracks, Vol. 1, offers up a wide selection of standards and originals, and all embrace the feel of jazz's great 1950s pianists without falling into the sound-alike trap.

First, full disclosure: I wrote the liner notes for this album. But I don't make a dime off of its sales, and as readers of this blog know, I only write liner notes to albums I'm passionate about. When Joe sent me an email some months ago, he asked if I'd give his demo a listen. I'm jaded by nature, but I try to give everything a spin. Music is hard and art is harder. If someone takes the time to ask, I'm happy to make the time to dig in with an open mind. [Photo: Joe with Ahmad Jamal]

So I wrote Joe back—with the following qualifier: "I'll give the album a listen, but you need to know that I write only about what I love. I have no time for 'like' or 'hate,' nor do my readers. We're only interested in what's special." I also told Joe that if I didn't care for what I heard, that's how the cookie crumbles. Joe said he understood.

The demo arrived a few days later. As it slid into my player, I fully expected to be ejecting the CD within a minute. Not so fast. I wound up listening to it about 12 times—and I was rather astonished. Once I even forgot what I was listening to and thought the album was from many years ago, forcing me to double-check. That's when I realized that there, in the hands of a kid whose technique is far beyond his years, is a really smart integration of the 1950s jazz piano sound and today's thinking. No crowding with notes. No endless runs on the keyboard. And no modern classical motifs. Just lots of swing and taste. Lots of taste, in fact. [Pictured: Joe with Oscar Peterson]

When I asked Joe how someone who was still in college could know so much about past pianists, he told me he spent much of his youth listening to LPs by Red Garland, Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Hank Jones, Barry Harris and others. The key wasn't to try and imitate those artists, he said, but to discern what made them special and adapt those traits to his own approach.

On Piano Tracks Vol. 1, Joe has done just that. There are 10 songs—five standards and five originals. The standards are well-chosen and, what's more, executed in a way that's fresh and exciting. There isn't a cliche on the entire CD, and Joe's improvisational ideas are all lovely and exciting. The standards are Time After Time, I've Got a Crush on You, I Cover the Waterfront, Last Night When We Were Young and The Days of Wine and Roses. You may think you've heard enough versions of these songs, but you'd be mistaken. Dig what Joe does on the mid-tempo I Cover the Waterfront, for example. He has enormous respect for space and historic styles throughout, varying from stride to modern right-hand melody lines and block chords. [Photo: Joe with Barry Harris]

Joe's originals are equally impressive. Dig Funk-A-Doodle-Doo, with its Ramsey Lewis 1960s soul-jazz feel. Or The First Night Home, a ballad that reminds you of Oscar Peterson's pin-drop Moonlight in Vermont from his On the Town album. [Photo: Joe with Hank Jones]

Joe's last quote from my liner notes sums up his approach perfectly:

"Often, when people hear shades of Red Garland in my playing, they say Red is a great place to start. But I'm not using Red as a stepping-stone. He's always going to be with me. I think there's plenty more to be done in jazz with melody and space that's innovative."

If jazz has a future, it's in the hands of up-and-comers like Joe Alterman. One only hopes that Joe sticks with his thing and isn't corrupted by peer pressure, commercial demands or earning a living. And that he keeps listening to and finding joy in Red, Ahmad, Erroll, Oscar, Barry and the rest.

JazzWax tracks: Joe Alterman's Piano Tracks Vol. 1 is available as a download at iTunes and Amazon. Or it's on CD here. Joe's website is here. On the CD, Joe is joined by Scott Glazer (bass) and Justin Varnes (drums), except on First Night Home, which features Sam Selinger (bass) and Tiffany Chang (drums).

December 20, 2009

Waxing & musings. The future of digital music is streaming— not ripping, burning or downloading. What does this mean in plain English? According to last week's New York Times, a growing number of Web-based enterprises are emerging that will charge consumers a flat membership fee to access a giant online music library. Theoretically, you will simply log in to your account and play whatever you want in the library and as often as you want. [Pictured: Blue Dominance, screenprint, 1997, by Bridget Riley]

In layman's terms, this means that instead of physically owning CDs and downloads, you'll rent unlimited access to a giant musical library in cyberspace. Even though there's an eerie lease-a-family quality about this concept, it's clearly a great idea. No more "lifeboat" decisions about which books to toss at home to make shelf space for new CDs. And no more fears about hard-drive crashes taking down your music library.

But as we know, not all great ideas are ultimately successful. The picture phone seemed like a gas of a concept until minicams were installed in laptops over the last few years, allowing you to squawk and gawk. Now it turns out no one really wants to see or be seen while talking to friends and family.

Projecting this "sounds great but I'll pass" model onto the online music library, the question is whether such ventures will fill a real need. Of course, much will depend on the service's subscription fee and sound quality. And whether the target audience will give up the ownership aspect of music collecting, and whether listeners will be willing to pay for more music than they already own and share.

For jazz fans, the biggest question mark is whether you'll be able to find everything you want, from box sets to obscure albums like the one pictured here. As we know from past music ventures, it's doubtful that jazz will become a fully stocked music category in the early stages of these e-library businesses. My guess is that classic rock, pop and rap will kick off the catalogs, followed by country and classical. Jazz, as always, will surely come last, with today's smooth jazz stars first to make it onto the virtual music shelf.

What does all of this mean? The odds that such an online-only library will satisfy a jazz fan's needs or even be designed for the jazz fan's sensibilities are slim to none. And like being stuck with a cordless phone in a blackout, I wouldn't want to find that I'm chordless if my Internet connection goes dead or the e-service goes bust. I think I'll continue to hunt and gather for now.

And the winner is... According to Tom Lord of The Jazz Discography, the No. 1 recorded jazz tune of all time is Body and Soul, with 1,947 jazz versions logged at the TJD database to date. Coleman Hawkins would be happy to hear that!

Brazil. If you're as nuts about bossa nova as I am, search around Scott Adams' MosaicBrazil and ConnectBrazil sites. Lots of good stuff.

Speaking of Brazil, in the wake of my post last week on Ithamara Koorax's terrific new album, Bim Bom: The Complete Joao Gilberto Songbook (it's impossible to be in a bad mood after listening to it), I did some bossa nova snooping online and found two delightful clips featuring Astrud Gilberto in the 1960s.

This one from 1966 features Astrud lip-syncing her Gil Evans-arranged recording of her then husband's tune, Bim Bom. Dig the smooth bossa nova-jazz dancing by Jean-Pierre Cassel...

And this one is a live performance (here she's really singing) The Girl From Ipanema with Stan Getz and Gary Burton...

David Amram. Last week David sent along this clip from 1995, when he was interviewed by a New York news station on the Greenwich Village scene in the 1950s. David's sentiment and spirit remain timeless...

Tito Puente. Trumpeter and arranger Marty Sheller sent along the following clip of Tito Puente's orchestra at the Umbria Jazz Festival in 1997. The band is playing Marty's arrangement of I Concentrate on You, with Bobby Porcelli on alto sax...

Doug Payne. Jazz writer and producer Doug Payne recently started Sound Insights, a jazz and music blog. Doug is also keeper of the CTI Records flame—including all of the lush Pete Turner-photographed CTI album covers, a complete CTI discography and more here.

DVD discovery of the week. A new series of DVDs was released recently that manages to combine great music with smart history and well-told tales. When I popped on Masters of American Music's Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, I fully expecting a cliche offering. What I found was a terrific story illustrated by rare interviews with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Haynes, Jay McShann, Chan Parker and others.

Even if you know the Charlie Parker story inside and out, it's told here with renewed grace and import, in a highly animated and dramatic fashion. In fact, the narration writing was so good I grabbed the packaging to see who had a hand in its development. The DVD was written by Gary Giddins [pictured] and directed by Gary and Kendrick Simmons. No wonder it's so good. This DVD is for anyone who wants an entertaining refresher on Parker—or as a gift for those who aren't familiar with him or jazz but want an intro to the artist and music. Perfect for those who ask: "Who was Charlie Parker and what's the big deal?"

The other three DVDs in the Masters of American Music series are Thelonious Monk: American Composer, Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday and The Story of Jazz.

You'll find Celebrating Birdhere. The other three DVDs are pictured and offered if you scroll down the Amazon page.

Oddball album cover of the week. As strange album covers go, Percussive Jazz takes the cake. This 1960 big band album for the Audio Fidelity label featured a bunch of heavyweights, including Doc Severinsen, Eddie Costa, Sam Most, Romeo Penque and Phil Bodner. A dumb art director and designer, and an even dumber label owner. Makes you wonder why they didn't just opt for the more popular cover vice of the period—half-clad models.

About

Marc Myers writes on music and the arts for The Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (Univ. of California Press). Founded in 2007, JazzWax is a Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year" winner.